


One Inch Fuse (Bakugou x Fem Reader)

by missredriot



Category: Boku no Hero Academia, My Hero Academia
Genre: Angry Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki Gets His Ass Beat, Bakugou Katsuki Meets His Match, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Bakusquad (My Hero Academia), Bakusquad Shenanigans (My Hero Academia), Class 1-A Shenanigans (My Hero Academia), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kirishima Eijirou is a Good Friend, Protective Bakusquad (My Hero Academia), Reader Has a Quirk (My Hero Academia), Reader-Insert, Rescue Missions, Slow Burn, Sports Festival Arc (My Hero Academia), Supportive Bakusquad (My Hero Academia)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missredriot/pseuds/missredriot
Summary: She lived her life in America hated by her classmates for her explosive quirk. Upon jumping at the opportunity to transfer to the hero course at the prestigious Japanese UA High School, she finds a rival in Bakugou Katsuki. Can they overcome their differences (or similarities, rather) and form a powerful duo?~~“Listen, blasty boy. I have a one inch fuse and you just fucking lit it. I’ll show you not to underestimate me. Just you wait, Bakugou. I’ll wipe the floor with you.”
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Female Reader, Bakugou Katsuki/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	1. 1

I crossed the threshold into class 3A with seven minutes to spare. A few people milled around the room, talking to friends they’d known the past two years, asking questions about how their spring breaks went and how crazy it was that they’d made it to their third year of high school alive. That comment made me stop in my tracks. Made it alive? The fuck kind of school did I sign up for? I shrugged to myself and eyed an empty desk all the way across the room, second row from the front. I walked over and slung my bag down underneath the desk and plopped down in the blue office chair.  
That’s different, I thought. Schools back home had rigid plastic chairs that attached to desks, but this hero academy in Japan had comfy rolling chairs. I felt a hint of pride swell in my chest at the knowledge that the fucks that had made my life hell back home were stuck with their shitty chairs and their shitty desks. I glanced towards two of the other students already in the classroom, noticing them eyeing me as if they couldn’t believe I had the gall to sit down. Either that, or the fact that I was a face they’d never seen before. However the look in their eyes told me it probably wasn’t the latter.  
One of the students staring at me, a girl with light pink skin and curly pink hair adorned with two little yellow horns broke into a smile and waved, the other student following suit. He had longer, yellow hair, with black streaking through like a lightning bolt. I forced my lips into a tight smile and saluted before turning back around to face the front of the room, hoping they’d take the hint and leave me alone. To my dismay, the girl spoke up.  
“Hey, what’s your name? Don’t think I’ve seen you ‘round here before!” I sighed lightly and swiveled around to face her. I gave her my name, and she smiled.  
“Nice to meet you! I’m Ashido Mina,” She chirps. The yellow-haired boy slung his arm around the back of his chair, opening his mouth to speak.  
“I’m Kaminari Denki! Now to what do I owe the pleasure of getting to meet someone as cute as you?” Ashido Mina (Mina? Ashido? I wasn’t familiar with Japanese customs so I decided to refer to her by her family name in my head for future reference) slapped the boy in the back of the head, telling him to chill out for flirting with the “new girl”. I smirk and give a small snort, giving a small glance to the students beginning to filter in.  
“I’m an exchange student from the United States. My school offered me an opportunity to come to UA… so now I’m here.” Ashido and Kaminari’s eyes widened and their smiles grew.  
“The US? That’s so—“  
“Hey fuckwad, get out of my damn seat!” The gruff, raspy voice rang through the room, and I turned my seat to face the source of the profanities. The source was a boy with unkempt, spiky blonde hair and bright red eyes that could’ve burned a hole through me. He stalked towards me with the worst posture I’d ever seen in my life.  
“Nice to meet you too, asshole,” I spat back. Ashido and Kaminari’s eyes widened just barely as they looked between the blonde and I as the distance between us closed. He slammed his hand on the desk.  
“I said, get out of my damn seat!”  
“I don’t see your name on it. Now fuck off and find your own damn seat.” That earned a choked laugh from Kaminari, followed by the quick slap of Ashido’s hand on his arm. His eyes burned into me and I glared right back, not wanting to back down from some random asshole my first day of school in Japan. I’d had my fair share of enemies in America and I wasn’t about to let my guard down.  
“I could say the same thing to—“  
“Bakugou! Leave her alone, she probably just didn’t know!” A boy with bright red hair, gelled up into spikes, put his arm in front of the angry blonde (wait, Bakugou, was it?), scratched the back of his head, and with an apologetic look on his face, turned to face me.“I’m so sorry! That’s Bakugou, he’s… a bit of a hot head. What’s your name?”  
I smirked at Bakugou before meeting the redhead’s bright red eyes (what’s with the people in this class having red eyes?) and leaning back in my seat.  
“Thank you,” I said, with enough pettiness to fuel a tank engine. I relaxed my tone a little before continuing, telling the redhead my name.  
“Oh! Cool name! You’re not from around here, are you?” I shook my head, laughing slightly at the offended look on Bakugou’s face.  
“Anyway, I’m Kirishima Eijirou!” The redhead smiled, flashing sharp teeth, and put his fists together like he was giving himself a fist bump. An odd greeting, but one I found endearing nonetheless. Bakugou, fuming, opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a man in a yellow sleeping bag appearing behind him.  
“Bakugou. I’m sure we’d all appreciate it if you just found a new seat. Don’t make me get up and come over here again,” Mr. Aizawa (whose name I managed to remember from the orientation I had received) scolds, with sleepiness evident in his gruff voice and his dark eyes. The blonde, who had whipped around at the sudden intrusion, turned back to me with a glare and stalked to the back of the classroom, Kirishima in tow. Mr. Aizawa turned and shuffled up to the front of the classroom and cleared his throat, the conversations ringing through the classroom fizzling out as the students turned their attention to him.  
“Welcome back, everyone. Glad to see you all back in class. Now, before we get into today’s training, we have a new student.” He shuffled in his sleeping bag, turning towards me. “Why don’t you come up here and introduce yourself?”  
I sighed and stood up, shoving a hand in my pocket and running the other through my hair as I stepped up to the front of the class. I turned to face the desks, now full of students of so many different shapes and sizes. I spotted Bakugou scowling in the back of the classroom. I turned to Ashido and Kaminari, and they flashed me a smile. I turned back to the whole class, and shot them a quick salute, and a smirk. I introduced myself and told them how I had transferred from a hero course in America, earning a couple comments like “Cool!” and “What are the girls like there?” That one had come from a particularly small student with purple… hair? Didn’t quite look like it. He was promptly told to shut up by a girl, whipping him from all the way across the room with a long tongue eerily similar to a frog’s.  
Mr. Aizawa nodded to me, and I walk back to my seat. I looked at my desk neighbors, spotting a boy with messy purple hair and dark circles under his eyes in the seat in front of me, a green haired boy behind me, and a girl with cropped purple hair and headphones to my right. I sat back down in my seat, reclining a little.  
“Today we’ll be doing one on one sparring. We have an odd number of students this year, so there will be one team of three. Get changed into your hero costumes and meet me at Ground Beta.”

~~

The girls locker room was nearly empty, with only five other girls besides myself. Class 3A’s lockers were all placed next to each other, and mine was sandwiched between Ashido’s and one that belonged to a tall girl with a black ponytail. She had introduced herself on the way over as Yaoyorozu Momo. She refused to let me call her Yaoyorozu, insisting I refer to her by her first name so as to accommodate American customs. She really was sweet, and I began to loosen up around my classmates as I hoped they wouldn’t turn on me like the kids at my old school had.  
I wiggled my way into my tight, black long-sleeved turtleneck, sliding my arms through the sleeves and hooking the end loops over my middle fingers. Orange flames adorned the sleeves and the neckline, as well as the sides of the torso. Next on was a burgundy breastplate and a black tactical harness that slid on like a backpack, buckling over the top of the armor. Stepping into my dark red cargo pants—the same color as the breastplate—I eyed the other girls.  
One girl, the one that had whipped the weird purple kid with her tongue back in homeroom, was strapping goggles onto her head. She looked vaguely frog-like—I guessed it was something to do with her quirk. The girl who sat next to me in class, with the cropped purple hair, was strapping on her black leather boots, matched by a leather jacket. I discovered that the headphones I had seen earlier were actually attached to the lobes of her ears, presumably another mutant type quirk. A girl I’d never seen before, one with short, brown hair, slid a helmet onto her head. It had a pink tinted visor, matching with her light pink belt and gauntlets. I couldn’t tell her quirk just by looking at her, but considering how her hands were the only parts of her body uncovered, it had something to do with them. Ashido, standing right next to me, wore a blue and purple animal print bodysuit with a cropped, sleeveless jacket. It fit what I knew of her personality quite well, seeing as she seemed to be the life of the party. To my right was Momo. Her quirk, as she had already disclosed to me upon meeting, was creation of objects as long as she knew their composition, which explained how little of her skin her leotard and belt covered. I continued to don my costume, buckling my black utility belt around my waist.  
I slid my feet into my boots—black combat boots with orange flames embellishing the heels—and laced them up. I strapped my gas mask over my mouth and moved to head out before I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder. I turned around with a scowl, but it immediately faded when met with a genuine smile. It was the girl with the brown hair and the pink visor.  
“I’m Uraraka Ochaco, nice to meet you!”  
I couldn’t help but smile back at her, and lower my mask so I could reply.  
“It’s nice to meet you too!”  
“You’re the exchange student, right? That’s so cool! What’s America like?” She began to walk with me out of the locker room and back out onto campus as we spoke.  
“It’s not… too different from here, I guess? I’ve only been in town a week so I’m still not too sure what it’s like here.”  
“That’s alright! I assume it’s really hard to get used to living in a new place. Did your family come with you or are you staying here with a host family?” I smiled at the thought that she was actually interested in what I had to say.  
“My family moved here with me, we’re staying in an apartment about a ten minute or so walk away. They’ve always been my biggest supporters, so I couldn’t imagine being here without them.” Uraraka smiled at me as I spoke, seeming genuinely interested in the conversation.  
“Do you miss your friends?”  
I paused for a moment. That hit a nerve.  
“I didn’t have many friends, but I do miss the people, I guess,” I say, beginning to continue forward to the training grounds  
“How come? You seem amazing so far. You even stood up to Bakugou. Everyone’s already so used to him that nobody actually tries to stop him anymore, but you didn’t take his shit at all.”  
“So he’s like that all the time?”  
“Yeah, pretty much.”  
“Oh, well, that sucks. Looks like I’m gonna have to put him in his place.” That earned a laugh from Uraraka, and I smiled.


	2. 2

Eventually, we caught up to the small number of classmates that had made it to Ground Beta. Ground Beta was a gigantic cityscape, filled with tall, sturdy buildings and streets. It must cost an insane amount of money to build it. How loaded was this damn school? More students began to file into the training grounds, so Mr. Aizawa began to give us the rundown of the exercise.   
“As I said in class, we’ll be sparring one on one to get a feel for using your quirks in combat again, and to help improve your adaptability in battle. I have paired you in teams of two and one team of three. The first match is Sato Rikidou, and Kirishima Eijirou. Take your marks.”  
Kirishima and a taller, buffer boy took their places in the center of the plaza while the rest of the class retreated to a special viewing room with dim lights and a gigantic screen taking up the entirety of a wall. Mr. Aizawa stood on the side of the plaza with his scarf in hand, ready to break up the fight if it got too dangerous.   
Kirishima and Sato’s fight relied heavily on hand to hand combat, seeing as their quirks were both strength oriented. The next fight was signaled by a small speaker in the viewing room, connected to an earpiece that Mr. Aizawa had taken to the training grounds. The frog quirk girl and the girl with the earbuds—known to me now as Asui Tsuyu and Jirou Kyouka, respectively—were called to fight, and they made their way back to the training grounds. The fights lasted until one student was rendered unable to move, or the ten minute timer ran out. Several more pairs were called out to the plaza to spar, and soon enough, a small number of students remained who had not yet fought.  
“Next up, Bakugou Katsuki versus our newest student.” Ashido, who had been standing next to me, gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.  
“You got this! Go kick his ass!”  
“I heard that, Mina!” Bakugou grunted from across the room. I snorted at his outburst, before giving Ashido a bright smile and a double thumbs up. I turned to walk out of the viewing room with the blonde, and I finally got to see his hero costume for myself.  
Quite frankly, it was the dumbest costume I’d ever seen. What could only be described as black and orange spiky fins protruded from his black mask. A metal brace wrapped around his shoulders, and gigantic gauntlets that resembled grenades adorned the entirety of his forearms. How do they not hinder his mobility? It seemed like he had written “Make me look as stupidly masculine as you can” on his costume design request form. Bakugou turned and caught me eyeing his costume.  
“The hell are you looking at, extra?” He snarled.  
“Just at how stupid you look with those gigantic things on your head and your arms.”   
“I do NOT look stupid!”  
“That’s debatable.”   
“The fuck are you doing at this school anyway?” He questioned, venom in his voice. I smiled.  
“Wouldn’t you like to know, bomb boy?”  
“I’m gonna kill you.”  
“I dare you to try.” He stopped in his tracks and shoved me up against the wall in the alley we were walking through.  
“Listen, fuckstick. I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t just come waltzing into this school like you own the place. You haven’t been here NEARLY as long as I have. I bet you don’t even deserve to be here. You’re just some shitty girl with some probably shitty ass quirk. I’ll burn you to ash.” During the encounter, Bakugou had gotten uncomfortably close to my face. I shoved him away, sending him stumbling back into the opposite wall. I stepped towards him and pointed my finger into his chest.  
“You don’t get to tell me whether I deserve to be here or not. I worked my fucking ass off to get to this point and I won't let you make me feel like shit about it.” I turned and stalked away, fuming. I'd show him. I'd show him that I had every right to be at this damn school.

~~

I stepped into the plaza, refusing to turn back to watch Bakugou follow. He shoved past me and I nearly swung at his punchable face in retaliation.   
“Show me that shitty quirk of yours, newbie,” He sneered, after taking his place a few feet in front of me. I considered smiling to piss him off, but I decided against it. I didn’t have it in me to smile after what he had said.  
“Gladly.”  
“Play nice, the both of you. I have every right to stop the fight,” Mr. Aizawa warned from the edge of the plaza. “Time starts now.”  
I held up my left hand and felt a colorless gas rise from my palm. I blew the gas towards Bakugou, earning a snort from the boy.  
“Really? What, is your quirk blowing kisses or something?” His posture instantly relaxed as he threw his head back in laughter. I scowled and held up my right hand. Fire spit from my palm and ignited the gas in the blink of an eye, causing the gas to explode with a bright, fiery blast, right in his face. The force of the blast sent Bakugou flying, landing with a thud on the asphalt about fifteen feet away from his previous position. He stared up at me incredulously from his spot on the ground, red eyes slowly narrowing with rage.  
“How the—“  
“Let me give you a little lesson on my quirk, asshole.” I cut him off before he could utter another word out of his stupid, gaping mouth. “My left side produces a colorless, methane-like gas. In other words? It’s extremely flammable. My right side produces fire, to ignite it. Flammable gas plus fire equals… kaboom. That easy enough of an explanation for your pea brain to process?”  
Bakugou snarled, face burning red, and turned to Mr. Aizawa on the sidelines.  
“Is this some kind of joke?” Mr. Aizawa shook his head, a smile ghosting over his face.  
“You both have extremely similar quirks. I paired you together because I wanted to see how you’d react to someone with equal firepower. Now I suggest you stand up and show your new friend a good fight.”  
Bakugou turned to me with venom in his eyes. “She’s not my fucking friend. She’s just a pathetic copycat.”  
Before I could explain to him that that’s not how quirk genetics work, he propelled himself off the ground with explosions of his own. He arced through the air and sent a blast my way. The downside of my quirk is that I can’t usually create explosions instantaneously, so I sent a wall of flames from my right hand at his explosion, hoping that would fend off the blast. The searing heat warmed my face and I cracked a wicked smile at the sensation. It felt amazing to be able to use my quirk again after transferring schools.   
The smoke began to clear out of the center of the blast zone, so I took an opportunity to run around it, hoping it would obscure me as I approached Bakugou from the back. It seemed to have worked, as I noticed him stalking forward to where I used to be standing through the clearing smoke, trying to provoke me.  
“Where’d you go, coward? Too scared you’re gonna lose?”  
Silently, I sent another puff of gas his way and detonated it, blasting him forward onto his face. He snapped his head back to look at me with pure rage, screaming as he scrambled to his feet. I noticed a scrape on his jawline from the impact, as well as soot smudging on his face and upper arms. I felt powerful, being able to knock someone so insensitive down a couple pegs.   
He launched himself at me at full speed and I stood my ground, crouching and waiting. I ducked under his punch and jabbed an elbow into his gut, forcing a large “OOF” from his lungs. He doubled over in pain and I took the opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him, his ass landing unceremoniously on the asphalt. To prevent him from moving any further, I straddled him with a knee on one of his arms and a boot-clad foot on the other. I braced myself with my left hand to the side of his head and my right hand poised ready to blast the dopey, shocked look off of his stupid fucking face.  
“Who’s the coward now?” I spat. He sputtered out an incoherent sentence, taken completely aback by my ability to pin him in less than two minutes.   
“Hah? I can’t hear you!” My taunting was met with a glob of spit landing on my mask, Bakugou’s only way of getting his rage out without stumbling over his words.   
“You’re gonna fucking regret that!” My right hand began to glow as I prepped to blast his face off, until I felt myself being yanked off of Bakugou by a strip of sturdy, gray fabric, landing flat on my behind. I scrambled to my feet with a scream of rage but was unable to get very far before the scarf’s grip on me tightened, pulling me back to the ground.   
“And I thought Bakugou would be the one to blow up, not the other way around,” Mr. Aizawa said coldly, staring me down. “Get back to the viewing room for your assessment. And try not to kill each other while you’re at it.” 

Momo was the first to raise her hand when asked to analyze the fight.  
“To start, I can see why the two were paired up. With similar quirks, it’s quite literally fighting fire with fire, allowing the one with the most intelligence and combat training to win.” She gestured to me before continuing. “Our new classmate here proved to have just that. Her use of the smoke from the blasts as a screen allowed her to place a calculated hit on Bakugou from behind, taking him by surprise. She surprised us with her skill in hand to hand combat, and used Bakugou’s anger as leverage to pin him down swiftly.”  
I looked over to the blonde and caught his eyes with a smirk.  
“However, although she won the fight, she let her apparent rage blind her in the end, and Bakugou would’ve left the battlefield with third degree burns had you not stepped in and pulled her off of him. There is no clear winner to this fight, as Bakugou lost in terms of hand to hand combat and she lost when it came to keeping her emotions in check.”  
“Excellent analysis, Yaoyorozu. As always, you have a keen eye.” Turning away from Momo to address the rest of the class, he continued. “That was our last fight. Get changed and head back to the main campus for lunch. You’re dismissed.”  
As soon as the words left Mr. Aizawa’s mouth, the class swarmed towards me, beginning to pepper me with questions.   
“That’s your quirk? So cool!”  
“How does it work? We couldn’t hear you talking out there.”  
“You pinned Bakugou so easily! How did you do it?”  
“Your costume is hot!”  
“Mineta you pervert, shut up!”  
I backed up, only to bump into more people behind me. Through the crowd I caught Bakugou glaring at the ground by his feet. He looked almost… ashamed. Like he wasn’t used to losing. Like he was usually the one commended on his power. Like I had swiped his position in the class right out from under him.   
I felt a pang in my chest.  
“Hey guys, I really appreciate it, but I’m super hungry right now. I’ll meet y’all in the lunchroom, alright?” With a nod, the group let me through and began to talk amongst themselves. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bakugou watching me as I left. I paused in the doorframe, turning to him. I quirked the corners of my mouth up into a halfhearted apologetic smile, and he turned away. I saw his fists clench as I turned back towards the exit.   
As I left the room, I thought to myself about Bakugou. At first I saw him as an egotistical, selfish asshole. I knew I could be a bit of a headstrong dick at times, but I saw him as my opposite, my newfound rival. Especially considering what he said to my face before the match; but after the fight, seeing his dejected reaction to realizing he wasn’t as powerful as he could be, I began to realize that maybe we weren’t so different after all.


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a filler chapter this time! sorry, i'll be updating more exciting stuff soon!

“Hey! Over here!” I turned to the sound of the voice, and it was Ashido, waving in my direction. I looked around to see who else she’d be waving to, but she followed up with a quick “Yes, you! Come eat with us!”  
I looked over at the table she was sitting at, seeing several familiar faces and one I hadn’t seen before. I saw Kirishima’s red spikes shift as he slung his arm over the chair to wave me over, and a thumbs up from Kaminari. A black haired boy with a wide smile waved, along with Ashido aggressively gesturing towards me. I took a step forward before seeing a familiar tuft of blonde, spiky hair, and I stopped in my tracks.  
“Are-- are you sure?”  
“Yeah! Come on over!” Kirishima responded, flashing me a smile with those sharp teeth of his. I crack a smile and head to the empty seat at the table, which fortunately was the furthest away from where Bakugou sat. I set my tray down and plopped into the plastic chair.   
“Thank you so much for letting me sit with y’all.”  
“It’s no problem!” Mina replies from her seat next to me, nudging me with her elbow. “You’re like a nicer Bakugou, we just had to bring you over.”  
I glanced over at Bakugou, who was glaring daggers at his food with a small “Tch.”  
“I wouldn’t say that…”  
“No, but seriously! You two have like, the same quirk!” The unfamiliar face said, leaning around Ashido to talk to me. “I’m Sero Hanta! Nice to meet you.”  
“Nice to meet you too, Sero! And sure, they’re similar, but they’re not the same.”  
“How does it work, then?” Kaminari asks from in front of me, shoveling food into his mouth.   
“Well,” I started, picking up my chopsticks. “My left side emits a methane-like gas, which is colorless, odorless, and extremely flammable. My right side produces fire to ignite it. It creates explosions just like Bakugou’s quirk.”  
“Woah wait, that’s so cool! You can also just use your fire side like you did during training too!” Kirishima’s face fell into a wide grin, wide-eyed with wonder.  
“Just like that fuckwad, IcyHot,” Bakugou grumbled from his side of the table, moving his food around with his utensils. “How did they even let you in, anyways? Especially when your quirk is almost identical to another in your class?”  
I took a bite of my food and thought about how I wanted to respond. I’d already pissed him off just by sitting down at the table, did I really want to egg him on more? I decided to be civil. “To be honest? I didn’t know there was anyone else with a fire quirk, much less one with an explosive side.”   
“Don’t try to act nice now, dumbass. Not after earlier.” I frowned at Bakugou’s response.  
“Fine. Just trying to be civil.”  
“Drop the act, asshat.”  
“Who’re you calling an asshat?”  
“Hey, woah.” Kirishima interjected, looking between the two of us, our narrow gazes still locked and neither of us wanting to back down. “What exactly happened during that fight?”  
Bakugou averted his gaze and focused it back on his food, taking a bite. I turned to the redhead.  
“I lost my cool. Almost blasted his face off.”  
“What happened between the viewing room and the match?”  
I took another bite, a little slower this time, debating on whether I wanted to answer truthfully or not.  
“Nothing, just some banter.”  
Kirishima stared at me doubtfully, but continued to eat. The tension at the lunch table was so thick I could've skewered it with the chopsticks I was holding. It was quiet for a few moments more, before Kaminari tried to break the silence with a joke. It worked, and the mood at the table instantly lightened. The rest of the lunch was full of laughter and stories of what happened over spring break, after the end of their second year. I was asked about what school in America was like, and I gladly explained. Jokes were told, and even Bakugou loosened up and cracked a small smile once or twice, even calling Sero a dumbass after a particularly bad joke. It became increasingly easy to forget what he had said to me just an hour before.

~~

Walking back to the dorms after school, I pulled Kirishima aside.   
“Hey, Kirishima. Can I talk to you for a bit? In private?” He cocked his head to the side, raising an eyebrow.  
“Yeah, sure. What about?” I looked around at all the other students nearby.  
“Actually, can we talk about this in the dorms? I don’t really want everyone here knowing.”  
“Of course.”  
We walked back to the dorm rooms together, talking about ourselves and really getting to know each other. I found out his favorite hero was Crimson Riot, who he fashioned his own hero name after. He told me about Crimson’s chivalrous spirit and how he aspired to embody it and be manly like his idol. I told him about my favorite hero from America, one with a dangerous quirk like my own.   
“It reminds me that even someone with such an aggressive quirk like mine can be a hero!“ I smiled from ear to ear. “That someone like me isn’t just cut out to be a villain.”  
“That’s so awesome!” We began to climb the stairs to the floor of the dorms that his room was on. “You know, that sounds a lot like Bakugou. His quirk is so strong and can be so violent that everyone thought he would end up a villain. His attitude doesn’t really help, but he’s proved them all wrong.”  
He held the door to his room open for me, and I stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the punching bag in the corner, and walls covered with Crimson Riot posters and tapestries with quotes I couldn’t quite read. Japanese was still a struggle for me, as I’d only been here a week and had only studied the language for a couple months beforehand. The bed had a camouflage duvet cover and matching pillowcase, and his desk was messy with pencils and a pair of small hand grips, as well as a bag of chocolate whey powder for protein shakes. He had a red minifridge next to the desk, where I assumed he kept the rest of the supplies for protein shakes galore. He definitely wasn’t lying about his goal to be manly, as his room practically embodied the word “testosterone”.  
“About that… Bakugou was actually what I wanted to talk about.” I sat in Kirishima’s desk chair, and he sat on his bed, taking off his shoes. Shit, right. That’s a thing people do here. I quickly slipped off my sneakers and tossed them by the door.  
“What about him?”  
“What’s his deal? Why is he such an asshole to everyone?” I met Kirishima’s red eyes for a second before he picked a spot on his bed to stare at.  
“He prides himself on his strength and his ability to best his opponents. But honestly, it’s mostly to prove to himself that he’s worthy of being a hero just like All Might, if not better.” If I remembered correctly, All Might was the former symbol of peace. He’d been to America a few times but I hadn’t really heard much of him. “Especially because his quirk is so dangerous. Even the League of Villains tried to turn him.”  
“The League of Villains?”  
“Basically exactly what it sounds like. It’s a big group of baddies. They… they kidnapped Bakugou his first year at UA. It hit him hard, especially when All Might was forced to retire. He blamed himself for getting captured, for All Might’s ‘fall’.” He put that in finger quotes. “His third year of middle school he was attacked by some weird sludge villain. He put up a good fight, but he would’ve lost if not for All Might.”  
I looked down at my hands, now clasped together in my lap.   
“Oh.” He really had been through a lot. A kidnapping and a villain attack? Something told me that Kirishima hadn’t told me everything, so he’d probably been through much more than he let on.   
“Hey, can I ask you something?”  
“...Sure.”  
“What did Bakugou say to you before your match that made you so angry?”  
I sighed deeply and looked up from my hands to meet Kirishima’s curious eyes.  
“He said I didn’t deserve to be here, at UA. He acted just like everyone at my old school did.”  
“Oh god, I’m so sorry. But wait, what was your old school like?”  
“Everyone hated me because of my quirk. It scared them, because it’s such a powerful weapon, and they hated it because I was top of the class because of it. They took it upon themselves to try to knock me down a few pegs. Nobody even attempted to be friends with me. I sat alone at lunch, and people would scoot away from me in their seats in class. Nobody wanted to pair with me for training for fear of getting hurt. I was ostracized because of a quirk I had no control over owning. So I put up walls and became the class asshole, and didn’t let anyone get close. So when the school offered me a spot at UA to continue my training because of my skill, I jumped at the opportunity. I’d finally get to escape. But… when Bakugou said that I didn’t deserve to be here and talked down on me like that… all I could think of were my old classmates. How they hated me and belittled me. It pissed me off and I let it get the better of me during the fight.”  
After a few moments of silence, Kirishima sighed.  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah.” I drew my lips tight and looked back down at my lap.  
“I hate when people do that. I’m sure if Bakugou knew he wouldn’t have said that. From what I’m hearing… you two aren’t that different from each other. Like, at all. You both have dangerous quirks that people villainize you for and you both don’t take shit from anyone. I feel like if you two just talked things out like humans you won’t be enemies for much longer.”   
I didn’t look up when I answered Kirishima, too ashamed to admit that hope blossomed in my chest. “You think so?”  
“Definitely. And if you don’t wanna talk to him yourself, I can always relay what you told me to him, if you’d like.”  
“Thank you, Kirishima. Seriously. I’m gonna head back to my dorm now, see you at dinner?”  
“Sure thing! Take care, my dude.” With that, I smiled, and grabbed my shoes from the floor. Kirishima closed the door behind me with a smile and a wave. All I could think about on the way back to my room was Bakugou, which quite frankly, I hated. Why did he suddenly take up so much space in my mind? I kept thinking about what Kirishima had told me about his friend. We really weren’t that different from each other after all, but I wasn’t ready to fully admit that to myself yet. I remembered the aftermath of our match and how dejected he looked, eyes trained on the ground so he wouldn’t have to look at me. I would’ve reacted the same way at my old school if some newbie had come in and shown me up, so I understood where he was coming from. Maybe I shouldn’t have egged him on like that before the match. He would never have said the words he said to me and I wouldn’t have bruised his ego as badly. Oh well, not like I could go back and change it now.   
After returning to my dorm room, I flopped down on the bed, suddenly exhausted from the events of the day. I looked at the alarm clock by my bed. That’s fine, I have enough time for a nap. So I curled up on top of the covers in my uniform and began to doze off, his red eyes the last thing I pictured before sleep took over.


End file.
